Ex-Army doctor remanded to police custody for three days

Retired Army doctor Somanath Parida, who was arrested after the recovery of body parts of his wife from containers at his home, was today taken into three days custody by the police after being produced in court.
Parida was produced before the court of acting Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Santosh Kumar Das Roy who remanded him to police custody.
Dubbing the death of Ushashree as cold-blooded murder, Deputy Commissioner of Police Nitinjit Singh said that the police had enough evidence to prove that Parida allegedly killed his wife.
"We have sufficient evidence to prosecute Parida," he said.
During initial interrogation, Parida had claimed that his wife committed suicide after banging her head against the wall, he said.

"However, our investigation does not suggest suicide," Singh said.

The postmortem report by the SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack said that Ushashree died due to injuries on the head.
"My wife's death is a case of 100 per cent suicide and not homicide as alleged. Hang me if you prove it a homicide," Parida claimed before reporters outside the court.
72-year-old Parida, a retired Lt Colonel, was arrested on June 22 after recovery of the dismembered body parts preserved in chemicals of his 60-year-old wife from 22 steel containers in two large boxes.
The crime came to light after Parida's brother-in-law and other relatives visited the house to enquire about Ushashree, who did not respond to repeated phone calls from the couple's children staying abroad.

Parida's son, Lalit, who came to attend the funeral of his mother, refused to meet his father in jail.